I fly in and out of DFW airport on a regular basis as a passenger and I have a question about the connection announcements that are made about 30 minutes from landing. Last Saturday I flew on the first morning flight out of FLL to DFW and I carefully listened to the connection announcements. The only west coast destinations announced were Los Angeles and Honolulu which I thought was odd since it was mid morning and surely there must have been a bunch of flights leaving to San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle...etc. Do flight attendants have a list of who is connecting where and then only announce those cities that are on that list?

Quoting DFWJIM1 (Thread starter):Do flight attendants have a list of who is connecting where and then only announce those cities that are on that list?

Pretty sure that is how it works. They don't have a list of every city but only a list of where the passengers on the plane are connecting. A good example is a few times while flying out of MIA to say DCA I would hear a connection information announcement landing in DCA. To Boston or Nashville. Obviously DCA is not a hub for AA but someone had a legal connection on AA to another destinations from there so the FA said it. But the FA did not say any of the DFW or STL flights etc..

When coming into MIA sometimes I will hear mostly domestic and Caribbean flights even though I know there are plenty of South American flight leaving around the same time too. It all depends on the passengers on that plane.

"It was just four of us on the flight deck, trying to do our job" (Captain Al Haynes)

Quoting DFWJIM1 (Thread starter): Do flight attendants have a list of who is connecting where and then only announce those cities that are on that list

On AA they do.
On more than one occasion the F/A's have also made the announcement on the flights I have been on arriving say at DFW.
"Due to the late arrival at the gate here at DFW there are 15 passengers with tight connections on this flight to XXX. Would the rest of the passengers allow them to deplane before leaving your seats"

I do not know how well that works but I usually just sit until about that quantity of passenger pass by me before I get up.

Quoting DFWJIM1 (Thread starter):Do flight attendants have a list of who is connecting where and then only announce those cities that are on that list?

Not exactly "who" (i.e. specific individuals) but all passenger itineraries with connections on AA/AE/AX.

Procedurally what happens is the pilots will send an ACARS message 30-60 minutes prior to landing. That message updates the Estimated ON time (EON) which automatically updates... everything. SABRE provides an automatic reply message with gate assignment, any operational messages (usually none) and passenger info. The passenger info portion includes arrival gate, baggage claim info, known connecting gates (AA/AE/AX only) and Admiral's Club info. All info is accurate as of the time the automated reply message was sent to the acft.

Pilots then pass this info (ACARS thermal paper printout) to the FA's prior to landing.

The flight attendants get a passenger list prior to the door closing at departure time. It has a whole bunch of information that is of interest to them. Platinum, executive platinum status, special services ordered, nonrev status, as well as connecting gate information current as of departure time.

Then prior to landing the flight attendants get the updated connecting gate information as described above from the pilots via ACARS.

I don't think the American Eagle/Connection flights operated by Republic, Expressjet, Skywest, Chautauqua get the updated connecting gate info as they don't have ACARS that tie in with AMR. They have to make do with the connecting gate information they received at departure time.

Quoting woodreau (Reply 4):
The flight attendants get a passenger list prior to the door closing at departure time. It has a whole bunch of information that is of interest to them. Platinum, executive platinum status, special services ordered, nonrev status, as well as connecting gate information current as of departure time.

Quite.

If I'm traveling with my wife on CX, this leads to a lot of "Welcome back, Mr. Starlionblue, and what cocktail would you like before your meal", at which point I gently get to point out that Mrs. Starlionblue is the one they should be paying attention to as she is the one with Diamond status...

"There are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots."

Quoting okie (Reply 2):"Due to the late arrival at the gate here at DFW there are 15 passengers with tight connections on this flight to XXX. Would the rest of the passengers allow them to deplane before leaving your seats"

They've done that on some US Airways flights I've been on. Just sub in CLT for DFW

I've had this done on some DL flights into ATL. It's actually pretty interesting to hear where some people connect to from MYR (The most unique ones I've heard were MEX, BOG, and LHR) .

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